1. ۱1
2. ۲COME up from the fields, father, here’s a letter from our Pete;
3. ۳And come to the front door, mother—here’s a letter from thy dear son.
4. ۴
5. ۵2
6. ۶Lo, ’tis autumn;
7. ۷Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder,
8. ۸Cool and sweeten Ohio’s villages, with leaves fluttering in the moderate wind;
9. ۹Where apples ripe in the orchards hang, and grapes on the trellis’d vines;
10. ۱۰(Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines?
11. ۱۱Smell you the buckwheat, where the bees were lately buzzing?)
12. ۱۲
13. ۱۳Above all, lo, the sky, so calm, so transparent after the rain, and with wondrous clouds;
14. ۱۴Below, too, all calm, all vital and beautiful—and the farm prospers well.
15. ۱۵
16. ۱۶3
17. ۱۷Down in the fields all prospers well;
18. ۱۸But now from the fields come, father—come at the daughter’s call;
19. ۱۹And come to the entry, mother—to the front door come, right away.
20. ۲۰
21. ۲۱Fast as she can she hurries—something ominous—her steps trembling;
22. ۲۲She does not tarry to smoothe her hair, nor adjust her cap.
23. ۲۳
24. ۲۴Open the envelope quickly;
25. ۲۵O this is not our son’s writing, yet his name is sign’d;
26. ۲۶O a strange hand writes for our dear son—O stricken mother’s soul!
27. ۲۷All swims before her eyes—flashes with black—she catches the main words only;
28. ۲۸Sentences broken—gun-shot wound in the ..., cavalry skirmish, taken to
29. ۲۹ hospital,
30. ۳۰At present low, but will soon be better.
31. ۳۱
32. ۳۲4
33. ۳۳Ah, now, the single figure to me,
34. ۳۴Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio, with all its cities and farms,
35. ۳۵Sickly white in the face, and dull in the head, very faint,
36. ۳۶By the jamb of a door leans.
37. ۳۷
38. ۳۸Grieve not so, dear mother, (the just-grown daughter speaks through her sobs;
39. ۳۹The little sisters huddle around, speechless and dismay’d;)
40. ۴۰See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better.
41. ۴۱
42. ۴۲5
43. ۴۳Alas, poor boy, he will never be better, (nor may-be needs to be better, that brave and
44. ۴۴ simple
45. ۴۵ soul;)
46. ۴۶While they stand at home at the door, he is dead already;
47. ۴۷The only son is dead.
48. ۴۸
49. ۴۹But the mother needs to be better;
50. ۵۰She, with thin form, presently drest in black;
51. ۵۱By day her meals untouch’d—then at night fitfully sleeping, often waking,
52. ۵۲In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing,
53. ۵۳O that she might withdraw unnoticed—silent from life, escape and withdraw,
54. ۵۴To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son.